Brand identity for tech startups
A pretty logo and brand colours are one thing. An identity that founders, investors and users remember is the real deal. Makata builds head-turning brands for startups in the US, France and beyond - from a first name-and-mark to a full system your product can grow into.
What we do
Brand is where most of our client relationships start. We take a founding team’s idea - sometimes a pitch deck, sometimes a working product with a placeholder logo - and turn it into an identity with a voice, a look and a set of rules that survive contact with a real roadmap.
There are three ways in: an extensive brand creation for teams launching or repositioning, a quick redesign for products that outgrew their first logo, and an MVB - a minimum viable brand - for pre-seed founders who need to look credible in weeks, not months.
Who it is for
Founders who are about to raise, launch or hire and know their current brand is not helping. Product teams whose app looks better than their website. Marketing leads who inherited a logo and no guidelines. Our sweet spot is tech companies between pre-seed and Series B - fintech, SaaS, consumer apps and gaming - the segments the work in our portfolio comes from.
How we work
1. Discovery
One or two working sessions with the founders, a look at your competitors and your users, and a short brief we both sign off on. We work in English, French or Spanish.
2. Directions
Two or three visual directions, each shown on real surfaces - app icon, landing page, social, pitch deck - instead of a logo floating on white. You pick one; we refine it.
3. System
Logo and marks, colour, typography, illustration or 3D style, motion principles and the rules that tie them together. Every asset is delivered in production formats.
4. Handover
A brand guidelines document, a Figma library and a shared asset folder your team - and your next agency - can pick up without us. Most brand projects run four to eight weeks.
Deliverables
Logo system: primary, secondary, app icon, favicon
Colour and typography systems
Brand imagery: illustration, 3D characters or photography direction
Motion principles and an animated logo
Social and pitch-deck templates
Brand guidelines and a Figma library
Selected brand work
Questions founders ask
Can you start from an existing logo?
Yes. A quick redesign keeps what works - usually the name and one or two recognisable elements - and rebuilds everything around it.
Do you also design the product and the website?
That is the point of a studio with brand, UX/UI, 3D and development under one roof: the identity is built by the same people who will apply it to your app and your site.
How do we work across time zones?
Makata is based in Envigado, Colombia, on the same clock as New York. Teams in the US get a full overlap; teams in Paris get the whole morning. Briefs, reviews and files live in shared tools, so nothing waits for a call.